HANOVER, N.J. – They may be getting ready for a rivalry match, but the New Red Bulls won’t be providing any bulletin board material for D.C. United ahead of Saturday’s Atlantic Cup contest.
Thanks to some odd early season scheduling, the Red Bulls will be playing just their fourth game on Saturday and already their second against D.C. Just one point separates the longtime rivals, who currently occupy the top-two spots in the Eastern Conference.
In their first matchup, New York handily dispatched United 2-0 at Red Bull Arena. The Red Bulls think that performance will serve as a motivator for D.C. on Saturday, and they expect United to come out swinging at RFK Stadium (7 pm ET; MLS LIVE).
“I would guess that they’re going to bring a lot of emotion to this game and feel like they came here and didn’t give their best performance,” Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch said. “They’ve had a good start to the season as well, and it’s a little bit of an early season heavyweight fight. We’re excited. We’ll be ready, and we expect them to do the same. And we expect it to be an intense, competitive match like they usually bring.”
United are coming off a successful regular-season campaign that saw them earn an Eastern Conference-best 59 points in 2014. It was the second strong season in three years for United, who had a very solid 2012 before backsliding, big-time, in 2013.
For Red Bulls captain Dax McCarty, D.C.’s ability to consistently earn results under head coach Ben Olsen is no mistake.
“They have been a very good team for two or three years,” McCarty said. “Ben has done a good job of molding them into a team that plays to their strengths. They play within themselves, and they know exactly how to win games. Certainly sometimes it’s not the prettiest soccer, but I think that they’ll take the three points any day over trying to play beautiful soccer.”
After putting together their best performance of the young season in their early win over D.C., the Red Bulls are wary of a United side who will be looking to return the favor.
They’ll certainly have to be on their guard all match – D.C. have scored game-winners in second-half stoppage time of each of their last two games, 1-0 wins against LA and at Orlando.
“I think it’s going to be a very competitive game, that’s for sure,” midfielder Sacha Kljestan said. “They definitely will have revenge on their mind. The thing about D.C. that we’ve said all along is that they compete, and they compete in every game.
“You can see in their last two games that they’ve kind of stole six points in the last minute of games by just staying in the game and staying competitive. I think it’ll probably be a little bit of a different game than the one at Red Bull Arena where we were all over them in first half. I think Ben Olsen’s going to be on them a little bit more to start the game better. We’re going to hope to start the game on the right foot and once again put the game on our terms.”
